Beyond the Network – Public Events

Various Dates – 2017

This page documents events and happenings, actions and debates that reach beyond the initial network to disseminate its ideas and try its findings in a broader context.

These are opportunities that arose directly or indirectly from the network events, its public engagement, radio broadcasts, participatory elements and other networking activities. They stand in relation to its research questions and aims, and hold the potential for their development beyond the network; and give shape to the testing and application of its findings.

These events are open to a public audience, please see each listing for booking details. Where possible, documentation from past events are uploaded to the listings below.

Listening Education: hearing the fake

Presentation by Salomé Voegelin and Anna Barney at the 4th Council of Europe Platform Exchange on Culture and Digitisation, Centrum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM), Germany.

Their presentation ‘Listening Education: hearing the fake’ will form part of the first panel ‘Different cultural digital tools used to fight populism, fake news, xenophobia and ideological political movements’. By proposing an education according to listening, Voegelin and Barney promote an attitude of doubt in the complete, in what we think we see as a persuasive whole, and invites the probing suspension of pre-conceptions and naturalized views to allow for the discernment of what is false and what might be true. In this way the adoption of listening as a method and strategy in education promotes interrogation and a practical engagement in the truth of things that avoids the simple acceptance of fake news, untruths and post-truth narratives, and instead hears in the soft between of things the “how” of their popular appeal and acceptance.

The conference will discus the tools of digital culture, with actors and decision-makers from different disciplines, institutions and citizens’ initiatives, including keynotes Peter Sloterdijk and Hito Steyerl. Conference participants will work on two main topics throughout the day; firstly the use of appropriate digital tools to enable citizens to actively participate in strong European democracies by promoting digital literacy and training resistance forces against current phenomena threatening democracy, such as populism, fake news and xenophobia; and secondly and the arts and the science networks in culture which are actively working against these anti-democratic tendencies.

The Conference was live streamed, and discussion was welcomed via Twitter and YouTube.

The problem with knowledge: Knowledge after austerity and Brexit

The problem with knowledge was the first of two panel discussionswhich debated Knowledge after Austerity and Brexit.

The second took place at the same time on the 2nd March 2017.

Together theyexamined knowledge production and dissemination in the context of austerity, and the way in which knowledge has been brought into focus in the atmosphere of the Brexit vote. This was the first of two open panel discussions that provided a framework to explore both the challenges and the opportunities that the current political and economic context presents.

Since 2010, the political and economic context for knowledge production in the UK has been transformed. Austerity’s ideological and economic dimensions have led to significant changes in the way that knowledge is produced and disseminated. The impact of fiscal tightening has been felt in numerous ways, from the closure of public libraries, to spending cuts inflicted on the arts, to fundamental changes in the financing of higher education.

In the last year, the EU referendum campaign and its aftermath have given rise to the idea that we are entering a new era of ‘post-truth’ politics in which intellectualism is disparaged and ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’. The outcomes of the referendum and the US presidential election have also focused attention on the financialized nature of digital knowledge production and on the increasing role of algorithms and ‘filter bubbles’ in the organisation of information online.

Panel 1: The problem with knowledge: Knowledge after austerity and Brexit

The first panel discussion focussed on the current landscape and examined the conditions of knowledge production in the UK today.

• How has austerity reconfigured the landscape of knowledge creation? • What new barriers (or opportunities) to participation in learning have been created? • How have knowledge institutions been transformed? • What can Brexit tell us about the value placed on ‘expert’, ‘non-expert’, and other forms of knowledge?

Designing solutions: New forms of knowledge creation and dissemination

This was the second of two open panel discussions which debated Knowledge after Austerity and Brexit

The first took place at the same time on the 23rd February 2017.

Together they examined knowledge production and dissemination in the context of austerity, and the way in which knowledge has been brought into focus in the atmosphere of the Brexit vote. These panel discussions provided a framework to explore both the challenges and the opportunities that the current political and economic context presents.

Since 2010, the political and economic context for knowledge production in the UK has been transformed. Austerity’s ideological and economic dimensions have led to significant changes in the way that knowledge is produced and disseminated. The impact of fiscal tightening has been felt in numerous ways, from the closure of public libraries, to spending cuts inflicted on the arts, to fundamental changes in the financing of higher education.

In the last year, the EU referendum campaign and its aftermath have given rise to the idea that we are entering a new era of ‘post-truth’ politics in which intellectualism is disparaged and ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’. The outcomes of the referendum and the US presidential election have also focused attention on the financialized nature of digital knowledge production and on the increasing role of algorithms and ‘filter bubbles’ in the organisation of information online.

The second event discussed emergent projects that sought to design an alternative future for knowledge production in the UK.

• How can knowledge production be re-democratized? • What role might practices of co-production and other innovative forms of knowledge creation play? • What challenges are faced by emergent projects committed to ‘open’ education and equality of access? • What should the knowledge institutions of the future look like?

Listening across Disciplines at the Southampton Science and Engineering Festival 2017

March 18 2017, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm

University of Southampton

As part of Science and Engineering Day at Southampton Science and Engineering Festival (SOTSEF) 2017 the Listening Across Disciplines project hosted a Science Soundwalk (a soundwalk is a walk with a focus on listening to the environment to experience it in a new way) led by Maria Papadomanolaki, a sound artist and experienced soundwalker. The group walked around the festival exploring its different sounds to experience how a focus on listening can enhance experience of this science event.

Southampton Science and Engineering Festival (SOTSEF) 2017: SOTSEF ran for the entire week of 10th-19th March, to coincide with British Science Week. A host of different science activities happened across the city of Southampton throughout the week. The largest and most anticipated event of SOTSEF was the fifteenth annual Science and Engineering Day that took place at Highfield and Boldrewood campuses of University of Southamptonon Saturday the 18th March. Read more.